…the rut in question was 400m long, 15cm wide, and muddy – but more of that anon. 😎

It has been a very interesting and valuable weekend.

Friday night, I went with friends to see [ yat-kha ] – a Tuvan folk-rock band who recently won the BBC’s World Music Award for Best Asian Band. Being a avid reader of Richard Feynman’s biographies, I became interested in Tuvan throat-singing many years ago; I am not much use at it, but I came to appreciate the music, and highly recommend it, especially for people with a folky bent.

Saturday, and I got a call from Whit, inviting me to dinner in Richmond with [ Fred Piper ] and his wife. Fred had to go out, unfortunately, but we three went to a nice local Indian restaurant – Whit’s opinion was rather more negative than mine, but I think he hews to a higher standard of cuisine – and then we decided to go for a walk and wandered the busy evening streets and gardens of Richmond. Got back late.

Whit came over to my house on sunday, and we lunched on a nicely seared carpaccio of beef on a bed of salad leaves and radish, sesame, coriander and soy dressing, baguette, and a fine but inexpensive bottle of Syrah. We also attacked the whisky collection, and went for a longer walk over my local heath, and talked more about security. It’s hard to say whether I wasn’t actually working for most the day, but the company was good, so who cares?

I declined having sunday evening dinner with him and the Pipers, in pursuit of getting-up early to go motorcycling; therefore it was inevitable that I should wake up to the horrible blatting note of rain (not condusive to novice off-road motorcycling) and so I instead spent the morning cleaning house post-Diffie, waiting until the promised sunshine appeared to go out on the bike.

I’ve not really been off-roading before, but [ the bike ] does have enough suspension travel to cope; some people will think I am mad for not having a real off-road bike to do this on, etc, but if my bike is cheap enough to experiment with, and general-purpose enough that it can cope with anything from [ touring ] to off-roading, then I say “why not”?

My only real bike worries were (1) having ordinary road tyres, (2) not clogging the front hugger/mudguard, and (3) not trashing the bike’s bodywork too much. The latter point was moot because I have already got a few scratches that need touching up, so I had to rely on the word of my 4×4-equipped colleague Simon that the track was in a good-enough state for me to ride.

My destination was “Five Lanes’ End”, a few miles from my house, on the North Hampshire Downs:

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?grid2map?x=469500&y=150500&zoom=4&isp=200&ism=1000&arrow=y?115,159

…and is a tree at the centre of a five-way junction, approached by farm-tracks of grass, gravel and mud that vary between 2..4Km (1..2½ miles) long. The riding got easier as I gained confidence, stood-up to the obstacles (pits, bumps, potholes, etc) and – most importantly – learned that patience and being content to pootle along in 1st gear were the best ways to stay safe.

I did drop the bike whilst stationary, in mud, nose pointing downhill, whilst checking the map, but no damage was done. I may try protecting some of the more exposed bits of bodywork with duct-tape, next time I go out. The hugger didn’t get clogged, but there is a good layer of mud that I shall have to jetwash off, and I imagine that it’s be more of a problem if I lived in an area with clay soil. They tyres worked okay, but I definitely would have been better-off with real knobblies.

I traversed the full length of four of the five lanes, and Simon told me later that the one I skipped (towards Bidden Grange) is likely to be impassable due to mud, so I got lucky. The scenery was fantastic – next time, I shall definitely take a camera – and it was a total rush afterwards to be back on tarmac, tyres scrubbed of mud, hurtling homewards at 70mph, totally knackered, for a well-earned shower, beer and baguette.

Just wait ’til I get my full license; then I’ll get a real off-roader. 😎